Make it your aim to live a quiet life, mind your own business and work with your hands... 1 Thess. 4:11

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Remembrance of a different sort

Not sad memories, creative ones. I had the official induction into my next perfectionistic obsession. I made a scrapbook page. I selected five photos of grandparents - mine, my husband's and a great-great-grandpa of my hubby's. I cropped, arranged, matted, drymounted, labeled and preserved. It was total and complete pleasure.

When decluttering my house, one cardinal rule is: "Does it bring back bad memories?" If so, I get rid of it. On Sunday our pastor of Spiritual Formation shared how she had come across a pile of partially burned family photos in Fish Creek Provincial Park. She was taken unaware by the emotion it evoked.

She got us to think of the trauma or crisis that would have led someone to want to burn all these memories. Every photograph we look at has the potential to stir our emotions. We think of the people in the photo, of our relationship with them, of the positive or negative experiences we have had. Often, love wells in our heart for them. Photos are powerful remembrances. She said communion is to be the same kind of remembrance of what Christ has done for us. Powerful.

Flylady says when you have too many of any one type of item (e.g. photos), then you overlook the truly special ones. Scrapbooking forces one to choose what is most special and memorialize it into a remembrance-worthy keepsake. So, I am going to become a scrapbooker. I hope my hubby cooperates by picking scrapbook supplies off my Christmas wish list. It will cost more money and take more time than dumping snapshots into a photo box or a backup file on the computer, but it will be worth exponentially more in the long run.